Page 21 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King

“I remember what you used to wear—” he says, the mention of the past freezing me in place. His thumb brushes the edge of my hip. “Slits all the way up to here just to tempt me. And you’d yell at me when I’d try to get a handful.”

The memory burns in my chest. Ren’s mouth at the edge of my ear, his hand sliding through the curtain of my dress to curl around my thigh as we sat side by side at a family dinner. What he whispered, when I crossed my legs and glared at him:“If you didn’t want me to come in, you wouldn’t leave the door open.”

The shameful way I had unparted my legs, just a little.

I step away from his touch, pretending it has no effect on me. I feign interest in one of the dresses on display instead.

“Do you want me to wear something like that again?” I ask, pointedly, trying to get this over with as fast as possible.

“It’s not exactly wedding material.”

“Well,I’mnot exactly wedding material,” I remind him. I wait for some kind of answer, some cruel agreement, for him to finally enlighten me to all the ways I did not measure up to be his wife the first time. But he simply looks at me. He prowls around me, his eyes sweeping the dresses on display.

“That’s the sort of thing you used to wear,” he finally says, nodding toward a mannequin wearing a long, sleek wedding dress. It’s pearl silk wool, with a plunging neckline and an implied slit under a sheer curtain of transparent lace. The mannequin doesn’t have the thighs to pull it off, but I do. I feel nothing as I look at it.

“Do you want to know what I pictured you in?” he asks.

It makes my stomach drop to the floor.

The thought that Ren had ever given any thought to what I would look like in a wedding dress—why? Why would he bother? I have no way to stop hearing it, short of plugging my ears like a child and trying to ‘la-la-la’my way out of it, so I stand there rooted as Ren draws my attention through the options and settles, finally, on a very bridal dress, all sheer lace floral accents on top and a wide, gorgeous skirt. It takes my breath away.

It’s like he robbed it straight out of my head.

“Something like this. It would have suited a princess, don’t you think?” he asks.

“I didn’t know you liked wedding dresses so much, Ren,” I snap at him. “Maybe you missed your calling. How about I wear the tux, and you can pick out whichever one you want—”

His finger comes up, very softly, and presses on my lips.

It’s so gentle, and yet with the expression in his eyes, he might as well have leveled a gun at me. I glare at him through the condescending little gesture as he leans in, pleased with himself.

“I think we have our answer.”

He motions for the woman to come over, and soon, I am corralled into a dressing room and face to face with a version of the dress in something close-enough to my fit. I glare into the mirror, then press my head against the cool glass.

Why is he doing this?

Just past the closed door, Ren and the seamstress are caught up in small talk. She asks him about our wedding. How we met. How long we’ve dated. Ren answers softly, probably feeding her sweet, innocent lies—some storybook version of everything that could have been. The way it was supposed to be. I can’t hear him over the surge of my emotions. I want to scream at them both.

Finally, I strip down, trembling as I force the wedding gown on.

Don’t look, I tell myself, keeping the full-length mirror at my back.

But as I stand there, I can’t help it; I have to see it. I have to know what it’s like. I turn around, my heart lurching as I see myself framed in the mirror. It’s a dream. A fairy-tale dress.

My dress.

My heart rips right out of my chest.

I bite hard on my reaction, refusing to give Ren any more satisfaction about how much this hurts. I should be grateful to bealive. Grateful that he’s giving me some chance, no matter how hellish it might seem now.

I think about how excited Harper would be to see me in this. That makes it easier to bear.

I leave the dressing room. The saleswoman sweeps in, cooing over how the dress suits me. She steers me in front of the large mirrors in the waiting room, zipping up the back of the dress with a sharp tug. It takes what little air I had left right out of my lungs. She explains all the fitting modifications she will make so that the dress will fit me perfectly, let out at the bust and takenin at the waist and on and on. I don’t hear her. My eyes are locked on Ren behind me, and his stormy expression. He steps up behind me.

I stare into the image reflected back at us—Ren in his dark suit contrasted against me in my white wedding dress. The whole world fades into the background, shrinks down to just the two of us.

Ren tells the lady to leave us alone to discuss it.

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